Secret Ties

Secret Ties

Secrets fascinate us through the mysterious ways they bind us and divide us. In spite of the universality of secrets (Who does not keep them? And what popular drama does not hinge on the keeping and the revealing of secrets?) surprisingly little has been written about the psychology of secrets. Yet the contours of our character are drawn by the secrets we keep. We tend to our boundaries every day by choosing who knows what about us.

Survival Tools

Survival Tools

The recent death of Nelson Mandela and our collective awe of his life have me wondering again what it takes to survive. Mandela was unusually well equipped to survive conditions that would crush the rest of us, but extreme examples sometimes teach us about the common middle. Given basic civil rights, what tools does the common person need to survive? And how do we get those tools?

Darling, I Hardly Know You

Darling, I Hardly Know You

Darling, on your 60th birthday, after 35 years of a flourishing marriage, I love everything about you, but, honestly, I hardly know you. I thought I knew you. I know you better than anyone else, but I thought I knew lots of people well—until I read George Vaillant’s Triumphs of Experience. Now it’s clear. We don’t know nobody. No wonder you keep surprising me.

Vacant Mother? Spit in the Cup.

Vacant Mother? Spit in the Cup.

What alarmed me was their timing. The first person to notice me in the doorway of their family room was the baby in the corner of the crib in the corner of the room. She locked onto me long enough to tag me as a stranger and then let out a slow, cat-like wail—loud but empty of urgency. Her father, Mitch, who faced the half-curtained window while folding baby pajamas near the laundry basket on the floor, finished his folding and carefully laid the pajamas on one of the stacks on the table before turning first to the baby and then to me.  Apparently he hadn’t heard his mother greet me at the front door and or the shuffle of my feet in the doorway, even though the TV was on mute. He lumbered over to hand the baby her stray bottle in the crib and crossed the room to show me in.

Wired for Empathy

Wired for Empathy

“You’re on my mind” is a loose figure of speech, until you play charades with your lover in a brain scanner.  Then you understand that she is not only on your mind but in your brain, deep.  And we know where.  We can see you lighting up right in your private parts, right there in your putative mirror neuron system and your ventral medial prefrontal cortex. That’s empathy in action.

Our Next Empathy Test

Our Next Empathy Test

During most of our written history there was nothing illegal or immoral about civilized governments systematically ignoring the feelings, rights, and interests of slaves, children, women, and immigrants, to name just a few of the overlooked. And yet during the last century in the United States we’ve found ways to consider these groups worthy of legal protection, fair pay, the vote, equal education, the right to own property—worthy of being treated as human.

Credo

Credo

On August 31, 2012 the following piece of mine was published in the Episcopal Cafe. It triggered some heat, which, in the link, follows the piece .

Three years ago, after being served communion once again by my brother, the priest of St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, and reciting the Nicene Creed with my usual questions about what I really believe, I came home and wrote a creed I could believe.